3GSM: Motorola CEO says telecoms must simplify

Motorola CEO Ed Zander has given one of his most high-profile interviews since taking up that position just over a year ago, touching on subjects including his company's digital music player phone plans, $3.5bn R&D strategy and how the world of mobile is starting to resemble the computing industry.

The former Sun Microsystems COO, speaking in a 'fireside chat' interview at this week's 3GSM show in Cannes, started by saying that after lean years in line with those of other equipment vendors the US company approached the new millennium with a concentration on "building great products" and "providing customer satisfaction".

Some of that refocusing is now showing through and Zander believes the courage of its R&D convictions means Motorola is pulling away from the downturn more impressively than some.

"Some companies' knee-jerk reaction [during lean times] is to cut R&D but that can come back to bite you," he said.

However, despite Motorola's recent upturn he claimed the current mobile landscape is a case of "déjà vu" for him, like the computing world of old. "We've got to take the complexity out of the industry," he said.

Zander was at Sun as Java hit the big time. But on the subject of pulling the plug on technological gambles, he revealed: "Remember Java. We kicked it around for six or seven years [at Sun]. We must have tried to kill it a number of times. Then we found a use for it."

He talked up push-to-talk, immediate communication handset technology, even if his company's trailblazing-though-proprietary offering looks set to be dropped over time by the merged Sprint-Nextel operator in the US, in favour of the Qualcomm system now employed by Sprint.

Another big question for mobile technology providers and operators is how to provide digital music - in short, how to compete with the iPod. Fellow panellist Miles Flint, president at Sony Ericsson, was fresh from an announcement yesterday that his company will use the Walkman brand to enter the market. Motorola, on the other hand, has done a deal with Apple to do an iPod phone.

However, in response to a tricky question Zander said: "I don’t want to get into whether songs will be stored on the network or on the device."